Synopsis

This film tells the story of photographer Robert Oelman who leaves his psychology career in the early 1990s to pursue photography. He moves from the United States to Colombia and purchases a small farm in the hills. On his journeys through the rain forests of the Amazon Basin he begins to take striking photographic images of undiscovered insects. After more than twenty years of traveling, searching and photographing, his quest culminates with a New York City gallery show. He also learns that these tiny life forms must continue to survive. They are at the bottom of the mammalian food chain and are critically important to all animal species including mankind.

Director/Producer: JAKE OELMAN

About Jake

Jake is a director and producer of independent feature films. In 2011 Oelman produced a concert documentary about the annual Electric Daisy Carnival, the largest electronic music festival in North America. The film, 'The EDC Experience', premiered nationwide as a part of NCM Fathom Events and is currently available on Netflix and iTunes. 

In 2012 Jake directed and produced the feature romantic comedy film 'Dear Sidewalk'  starring Joe Mazzello and Michelle Forbes which premiered at the Austin Film Festival and is currently available on iTunes, Amazon, and Hulu. In 2013 Jake raised over $26,000 on Kickstarter to start production on his latest feature film, 'Learning To See'. The documentary film tells the story of his father Robert Oelman who has spent the last 10 years of his life scouring the rain forests of the Amazon, photographing and discovering rare insect species. The film premieres at the 2016 SXSW Film Festival.

Photographer: ROBERT OELMAN

About Robert

 During the past twenty years, Mr. Oelman has dedicated himself exclusively to nature and more specifically macro insect photography. He, along with his assistant Christian Lopez, travel to remote rainforests in Columbia, Ecuador and Peru in order to find and photograph some of the most exotic insects on the planet. Most of them have never been photographed before. He collaborates with the entomologists at the Smithsonian Institute and the National University in Bogotá. This collaboration allows for a proper identification of the insects as well as numerous discoveries of new species.

Writer/Producer: JERRY ARONSON

About Jerry

Jerry Aronson's films include the 1978 Academy Award-nominated film, 'The Divided Trail', which follows the lives of four Native Americans who lived in the urban heart of Chicago.  The film was soon broadcast on PBS in a special series, Matters of Life and Death, in 1980.  Jerry was also chosen to be a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute in 1981.  He directed a six-hour documentary miniseries which examines the evolution of an American musical form from its origins in Appalachia to its current preeminence as a billion-dollar industry. 'America's Music: The Roots of Country' aired on TBS and TNT in 1996. 

Jerry first completed 'The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg' in 1993, when it had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.  The film then won the prestigious International Documentary Association Award of Excellence, had a US theatrical run and has since been exhibited at over 250 international film festivals. The PBS series, American Masters aired the film in 1997. He then produced 'Chasing Ice', a feature documentary on climate change which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 and went on to a successful distribution including Theatrical, streaming on Netflix and a world-wide run on National Geographic Television. It won an Emmy in 2014.